I am away from my desk attending a family reunion. To get to bucolic Monticello, Illinois, I have driven through countless miles of land that was once prairie and then small farms and is now an endless stretch of massive sterile mega-fields servicing agribusiness. While I am reconnecting with […]
Remember 2006 when suddenly everyone was afraid to eat spinach because there were reports of contaminated greens in a couple of taco restaurant chains. It turned out to be contaminated iceberg lettuce that caused at least 276 cases of illness and 3 deaths. How much good produce had to be […]
Dave Baumler is my pepper guru. (see my previous posts on his exploits The Brave New World of Not So Hot Peppers and Peppers in History and in Your Garden ) He grows an amazing collection of peppers from around the world by starting them in his house and raising […]
One of the workshops at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference we attended a few weeks ago was called “Creating a Regional Food Economy in Our Backyard.” This is a topic Doug and I care deeply about, and it’s central to the plans we have for our future. We’re lucky. We […]
The day after Thanksgiving, and I’m still thankful. I’m thankful for the Dane County Farmers Market, which moved indoors a few weeks ago and made our table groan yesterday. We have been able to feast on mostly local goodies for the past few years, since we started to tune into […]
Composting is a rich and fertile topic, and there is always something more to learn. I got my most recent lesson at a presentation on Sheet Mulching by Kate Heiber-Cobb, a Permaculture Designer and founder of the Madison Area Permaculture Guild. The beauty of compost! Heiber-Cobb says that sheet mulching […]
It’s been a hot, dry October. Odd to watch the leaves being blown off the trees by such balmy breezes. But fall is fall — and that means crazed squirrel time. Winter is coming, and there are things to do before the ground freezes. With Doug teaching biology at UW-Platteville […]
I like dried fruit. It’s a great way to enjoy fruit all year long with minimal energy expenditure. Doug and I have been hoping that we will be able to grow seedless grapes on our south-facing slope, solar dry them and put some local raisins into our foodshed. Last night […]
This has been a great summer for growing peppers in Wisconsin, and no one knows this better than Dr. David Baumler: by day — a post-doctoral researcher at the Genome Center of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and by night and weekend — a master pepper gardener. Dr. Baumler spoke on […]
This year’s harvest is in full swing, and it’s always a mixed bag of crops that surpass my wildest expectations and others that are a real bust. I’m hoping to improve my odds next year. I’ve decided to get the jump on New Year’s Resolutions and start planning for next […]
Digging in the Driftless 